Of all the effects in the theatrical toolbox, on-stage nudity suffers most from diminishing returns. Give an audience a glimpse of breast or buttock, and the imagination quickens, the hint far more tantalising than the softly shaped flesh, however young and pretty the body it belongs to. But give them an evening of nudity, and genitalwaggling nudity at that, and it quickly looses its allure, at least it does in the West End where audiences still like a little restraint alongside their desire.

IT IS impossible to figure out who is meant to be captivated by this. Yes, there is an undoubted cult camp aura surrounding Shakti’s flagrant, freewheeling evocation of The Pillow Book — she spends half the evening in the nude — but there is nothing sly or ironic here. Shakti may be trying to upend our notions of what is acceptable in terms of a public display of sexual appetite; but, in the end, she is so earnestly po-faced in her mission that she fails to liberate anyone except herself.

Japanese dancer Shakti's erotic portrayal of The Pillow Book caused something of a storm at the Edinburgh Festival this year. It is festival material, a case of the avant-guarde veering towards the kitsch.

Rising up in a magnificent red and white robe, she is the picture of feminine beauty and pride that she intends to be, working as she is from the liberating poetry of the 11th century Japanese poet Sei Shonagan.

In her movements there are elements of Bharata Natyam and Kathak – the stamping, the hands poised backwards, her head dancing side to side on her neck. But the work has a heavily improvised effect. There seems little to speak of in the way of skilled choreography and it often feels, as Shakti runs about in wild abandon, that we are watching someone having a shamanic indulgence in the privacy of an empty room. There is an intense solitude in it that borders on the uninteresting.

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